Chasing Life
by Emerald Embers
Summary: He's just looking for something new. Demi-Fiend/Sakahagi


Naoki pulled the knife out of his side before Sakahagi could finish the job by slicing into his spine, the manikin's grin doing nothing to hide that it hadn't been an unconscious attack. The others had taken each other out while charmed but no charm spell lasted past the death of the group who'd cast it, and while Naoki wasn't as interested in an answer as he was in getting himself to the safety of his other demon followers, he still had to wonder 'Why?'.

Sakahagi grinned wider, gripping Naoki's arms and only starting to frown when he struggled to pin them down. "Your skin looks better red."

Naoki watched Sakahagi lower his head, was more relieved than pained when sharp teeth bit into the skin of his abdomen.

"You remember killing me, don't you?" Asked the manikin, blood clinging to his skin more effectively than it would to a human's. Naoki definitely didn't like seeing red on his own skin, but couldn't complain about the way it looked on Sakahagi's. "How good did it feel? Because getting a taste for it is easy." A last smirk before Sakahagi got to his feet, handing a potion to Naoki and helping him stand once red had faded into blue. "Futomimi had a sense of nobility, you saw how much good that did. I just wasn't powerful enough." Sakahagi twirled the blade in his hand once before slipping it into the folds of the robe. "Think about it."

.

Naoki thought about it, more often than he would have preferred. Holding onto any sense of morality was hard in the circular world, with this power and so many allegiances he could make if only he would commit. He felt like a blank slate, passionless, uninterested.

Bloodied knuckles appealed too much. He loved contact in battles, loved smashing his fist into flesh and feeling bones break, organs rupture. He wanted to hate Sakahagi's hungry eyes when the fights were over but couldn't because he knew how the manikin felt - anything was better than fading away, and he'd kill again if it meant he kept feeling alive.

.

Raja Naga didn't just die at Naoki's hands; he crumbled, defences meaningless with Sakahagi's battle support. It wasn't enough. Naoki sat at the corpse's side, let his group wander off to rest and recover. It was no surprise that one member stayed behind, watching with dark eyes before sitting down and taking out his knife, handing it over.

Naoki wouldn't skin the corpse. Couldn't.

It didn't matter what he thought because by the time he'd run through every reason he shouldn't, he'd already separated Raja Naga's limbs from the torso and started idly flicking scales off its tail.

"Not like that," Sakahagi growled, moving to take the knife and glaring when Naoki wouldn't let go. "You're experimenting but they won't all have scales. What do you want, souvenirs?" Sakahagi closed his hand around Naoki's, pushing it up to Raja Naga's stomach and pulling down with the blade, splitting flesh apart to show wholly inhuman, wholly destroyed innards. "That's what you did, and I'm pretty sure it's what you wanted to see."

Naoki didn't like being controlled, but he felt as if having someone else being right for him was definitely something he could get used to.

.

When Dante joined the group, no one was entirely sure what to make of him. He was rude, brash, flirted with everything that moved and a few things that didn't. He was also very much over-fond of giving advice that was rarely asked for and even rarer wanted.

"That guy likes you," Dante pointed out from behind Naoki, his height making him startling to turn around and face but the shock of white hair making him utterly useless at looming.

And another unwanted comment. Wherever Dante came from sure didn't know the value of silence.

"Not that I'm gonna tell you what to do," Except, of course, that he was, "But someone who skins people for a hobby? You just can't touch a guy like that."

Naoki pondered the wisdom of telling Dante the truth of it but decided to let it slide, shrugged the comment off as he tended to do with nine out of ten things that ever escaped Dante's lips.

.

"Oh, I _knew_ it," Dante huffed.

Naoki looked up from between Sakahagi's legs, neat lines scoring the manikin's thighs, couldn't resist smirking. Sati lay dead beside them, too easy a kill, eyes staring blankly from above her veil. She should have agreed to come with them when offered the chance.

"Knew what?" Sakahagi asked, quite understandably annoyed at the interruption.

"Knew he had a sick fuck gene like you." Dante cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. "What are you even doing?"

"Nothing better to do," Sakahagi replied, rubbing one foot against Naoki's back. "Wanna join in?"

Naoki glared and deliberately nipped at a very sensitive place on the manikin's skin before getting up and dropping the knife, leaving the other two in each other's company and waiting outside the door to listen to the rest of their conversation.

"What was that about?"

Dante tsked, sounding amused. "Someone should've told you if you hadn't figured it out already. Part of him's still human."

"So?"

A pause then, whether for effect or due to movement Naoki couldn't tell. "There's nothing as easily bored as a human. All that intelligence and a short life span? Could drive anyone mad."

"And what's that got to do with me?"

"I thought that much was obvious," Dante's smirk was so deeply ingrained it felt audible, and Naoki couldn't resist smirking in turn, folding both arms behind his head.

"He's looking for something new."

.

The End


End file.
